Worst SAT Score Ever

Okay:

I remember quite clearly the day I took the SAT. As clearly as I remember anything from high school anyway. I don't remember the month, the day or the location. And I don't remember any of the questions or what the proctor(s) looked like. I don't even remember if it was particularly difficult.

I remember two things really:

I scored a 1090 (which was pretty good for a DCPS graduate in the late 90s)

and I took it the morning after an Outkast concert.

I remember that part because I was the only one among my crew of friends who did not go to the concert. I figured the SAT was more important. I imagined I'd have the chance to see them again. (Ironically, I would open for them two years later while in college.)

I also remember that my sister scored, like, a 1400 or something. But she was always the brains in the family.

Now, the scale is different. Not the scale exactly. They've just added a Writing portion that is also worth 800 points, so now a perfect score is 2400.

Remember they used to tell us that you get 200 points just for spelling your name right? I always imagined that there was some poor slob out there that they were thinking about. Someone who lacked the capacity to answer any of the questions correctly, but they did not want him to go home empty handed. Like a benevolent game show host. They did not want to make him feel like a complete loser. But I never imagined that someone could not even luck upon one or two good guesses.

That is until the other day.

One of my students brought in his SAT scores. He scored an even 200.

I teach this kid. I know he's limited. He can barely read at all, in fact. He has no phonemic awareness, and at 17, he's got no motivation to try to make up for lost time. To him, I imagine it's the same way that climbing Mount Everest seems like a cool idea.

But, DAMN.

No lucky guesses?

Isn't that, like, a mathematical impossibility?

He's in the first percentile in nearly every category.

He asked his reading teacher, "What do all these ones mean?"

It means he that he performed better than one percent of the people who took the SAT this year so far. And that one percent is probably just some sort of error margin. That is, that one percent probably does not exist.

Whilst racking my brain to figure out how in the hell this kid could have performed so poorly, it finally occurred to me.

He didn't perform at all.

He opened up that test, discovered he didn't understand a word of it and walked out.

Which begs an entirely different question: What jackass told this little boy to take the SAT?

Which begs another question: What do you do with a student who is limited, yet ambitious? Do you crush their spirit and tell them what they can't do?

I'm reminded of the teacher from The Autobiography of Malcolm X who told told young Malcolm that a lawyer was an unrealistic career goal for a nigger, that he should try to become a carpenter.

The flip side is of this philosophical question is the kid with the worst SAT score ever. His esteem is crushed. Is it up to knowledgeable adults that care for him to put him into situations were he can succeed?

Or does he need a reality check such as this to push him toward a more "realistic goal"?

A sort of truth therapy, which you all know I am in favor of.

Not sure.

No punchline here. Just a thought.



Thanks for reading.

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Factoid: I graduated from high school with a 2.2 GPA, but I graduated from college cum laude. See? High school is dumb.